Tiny Metal developer Area 35 has detailed the first major update for the game, Patch 1.0.10.

This patch comes with a wide range of fixes, changes and new content. The most noticeable update is that the opening cinematic has been replaced by a more traditional loading screen. Balancing changes have been made to many units, and all units can now be healed in friendly structures - before it was limited just to infantry units.

A selection of new skirmish maps - including "Split Fire," "Sea of Trees," and "Abandoned Park" - have been introduced as well, and the Metalpedia has been updated with new lore. These alterations are paving the way for the much-hyped multiplayer patch, which will launch soon.

UI- Increase text size for event dialogs
- Add 0.1 second wait between Hero selection and landing selection to prevent mis-presses
- Add canceling of fast forward during cutscene dialogs
- Add two extra zoom levels in field mode
- Allow player cursor to enter unseen terrain
- Make player cursor hover on top of tiles and not fixed to the floor
- Make attack previews for indirect units show the unmoved attack range
- Make camera panning track focusing on indirect unit’s targets
- Make saving settings perform an immediate save to disk
- Move cutscene dialog buttons to non-moving position at bottom of screen
- Reduce default unit voice play chance to 50% from 100%
- Increase contrast of hp % number on per unit hp bar

Balance
- Make all land-based units healable at Cities, HQs, and Factories
- Increase difficulty of M13 & M14 on both normal and New Game +
- Reduce flanking vulnerability of Fighter units to 15% for attacks from behind
- Increase terrain sighting range by +1 for Riflemen, Lancer, SpecOps, Sniper, and Scout
units
- Increase terrain sighting range by +1 for all buildings that can be captured
- Increase attack power of Riflemen and SpecOps against Sniper units
- Increase attack power of Lancers against Heavy Metals
- Decrease difficulty of Mt. Forest in Skirmish Mode

Bugfixes
- Fix victory not being given to player on three or more team maps under rare conditions
- Fix cursor realignment upon new player turn when auto-move to next action is disabled
- Fix optional mission 3 (MX03) not revealing during New Game+ mode
- Fix some UI text not being translated

Area 35 Director Hiroaki Yura had this to say about the update:

When we first set out to create TINY METAL over a year ago, we were just a small group of experienced Japanese game developers with dreams of playing another Advance Wars-type strategy game. And now that TINY METAL has been released, we're dedicated to making it the best experience possible with Patch 1.0.10, and look forward to implementing your continued feedback as we march towards our multiplayer update.

Full patch notes can be found here. Let us know your thoughts on this update by posting a comment below.

Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded.

I really hope they increase the speed the game plays at in the future, as the units seem to move really slow. On a more positive note, I really enjoy the variety of units and the tactical situations in the game and it is worth checking out if you have not got around to it yet.

@Dpullam@BenAV@Ralizah Mostly, the variety of units is severely lacking. No naval units, the air units basically consist of a copter, fighter jet, and a flying radar.
Ground units are just 20 billion different types of infantry, small tank, medium tank, slightly bigger tank, rockets, slightly bigger rockets, and a radar, with a slightly bigger radar.

I dunno, that advance wars magic just isn't there. That and your CO has no involvement in the battle whatsoever. I didn't think that would bug me much but it makes fights seem less personal. All in all, the game just didn't wow me. Still not a finished game either, which I would have forgiven if the base game impressed me more.

Definite show of improvement. Happy to see the overly long opening cutscene replaced and that all land units can now be healed in any captured city, HQ, or factory. Was really annoying to only heal tanks and other mechanized units in just factories (which are often few & far between).

@Ralizah Wait for WARGROOVE. The opening cinematic was very laggy and long. It couldn’t be skipped and it was terribly annoying. That was just a taste of the problems though. The game just doesn’t run well on the switch. Gameplay was fun but the experience was muffled by technical issues. I really wanted to like the game but the animations just run like molasses compared to the pc version. I uninstalled it.

All those comments here made me glad I only wishlisted it, and didn't take the plunge. I hope Wargroove and Fire Emblem will pan out this year. The Switch is the perfect place for games like these, and Nintendo would be doing us all a disfavour, if they decided not to use this golden opportunity to bring AW back. They 've learend valueable lessons from FE:Awakening no doubt, and some of that could definitely be applied to some degree on AW as well. It might not take off in the same way, but it could still be a solid performer and another critical darling as well. It's about time.

The articles about the relationship with Project Phoenix (and potentially $1m of kickstarter funds used for this game instead of the game promised) soured me on it early.

I won't cross link to another news site, but plenty of articles about the concerns from backers, and the fact that the devs said unless Tiny Metal sells millions of copies they can't afford to make the game they promised on Kickstarter.

Nobody seems to be mentioning the fact that the developers stole money from another kickstarter to make this game, leaving tonnes of RPG fans with empty wallets. Usually that's all anyone says in these comment threads.

@DrLockdown Yeah but from what I heard they are still working on the crowdfunding game. Apparently the funding for Tiny Metal came from other sources and the proceeds are being used to continue working on that game.

I bought the game but it felt bare bones and lacking many of the features from older titles that supposedly inspired it. I might get back to it after this update, but I have other games to play too. I think I'd rather just wait for Wargroove.

Would have loved to see an improvement to the fps in handheld but I guess that wasn't a priority. A redesign to the units or terrain color to make them more visible would have been welcome too. I'm a little disappointed. If you want a strategy game buy Disgaea 5 instead or wait for Wargroove. Tiny Metal is at most a 6/10.

Did they fix the battle animation so they don't look like total poop anymore? Did they give some more polish, whether in color or lighting or texture or shading to the maps? Really regret buying this game. BUT I do love whatever artist did the illustrations when people are talking. This is a $25 game that looks and plays like a $5.99 one.